by Sara Leach
Tess and Cedar each made two trips with the packs. On the final trip, Tess untied the rope from the tree and retied it around her waist. Cedar gathered the slack as she crossed. Soon they all huddled on the far side of the bank.
“Get out some dry clothes, you two,” Tess said.
Tabitha dropped her pack and started pulling out clothes. Thanks to the garbage bag, her clothes weren’t soaked through. She was so cold, she didn’t even care that Cedar was there as she stripped off her shirt and put on a drier fleece. Ashley nodded but didn’t move.
“Cedar, get some clothes for your sister,” Tess said. She began pulling off Ashley’s clothes and then hugged her in a tight embrace. Cedar handed her the dry clothes, and Tess put them on her, then hugged her again. Within a few minutes, Ashley seemed to revive a bit.
“Thanks,” she said to Cedar.
He shrugged. “No big deal.”
Tess peered at Ashley’s face. “How does it feel?”
“It aches,” she said.
Tess pulled out her first-aid kit and handed Ashley a white pill. “Take this painkiller.”
Ashley looked at the pill in her hand. “You always tell us not to take these.”
“I don’t make a habit of using drugs for no reason, but this is a special case.”
Ashley stared at the pill. “I can’t swallow it.”
“Just take it,” Cedar said.
Ashley shook her head. “I mean, I can’t swallow pills like this. They get stuck in my throat. Don’t we have any of the little-kid ones? Or some jam I can eat it with?”
Tabitha coughed to cover a snort. Amazon-girl Ashley was scared to swallow a pill? She’d have to eat twelve little-kid pills to make up for an adult one. She started to make a nasty comment, but stopped when she saw the misery on her cousin’s face. “Put it way back on your tongue, take a sip of water and throw your head back.”
Ashley grimaced, then opened her mouth a crack and dropped the pill in. She gagged a bit, but managed to get it down. “Thanks.”
“Let’s get going,” Tess said. “We need to make a fire and get everyone warm.”
They nodded and shouldered their packs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The hike to the hut was painful. They slipped and fell and groaned. Tabitha cried more than once, but at least the rain streaming down her cheeks hid her tears. They crossed four more creeks that had turned from trickles to torrents with the rain. Tess and Cedar took turns setting the rope. Tabitha and Ashley were too worn out to want to try setting the safety lines.
Each time she crossed a creek, Tabitha had to steel herself before taking the first step into the water. Her feet knew how cold, slippery and dangerous it would be, and she had to talk them into leaving the bank. Her hands gripped the rope so tightly that she had to force them to unclench and mover farther up the safety line. Four times she splashed through water up to her waist. Four times she made it across and collapsed onto the bank.
They reached the lake at dusk. The rain still fell and the clouds hung low and gray. If she hadn’t already been there, Tabitha never would have believed the lake was surrounded by mountain peaks. The oppressive gray reflected her mood. She’d never felt so tired in her life. Even going to school and facing Melissa would be better than being stuck up there in the rain.
Cedar led the way as they trudged the last few steps to the hut. Max plodded behind, his fur so wet he looked more like a river otter than a dog. By the time Tabitha got inside, Cedar was starting a fire.
“Try to find some dry clothes, and I’ll get started on dinner,” Tess said.
“Good, I’m starving,” Cedar said.
By the time Tabitha came down and hung her wet clothes by the fire, Tess had started boiling water on the stove.
“Can I help?” Tabitha asked.
“There’s not much to do,” Tess said. “All we’re having is noodles.”
“That’s it?” Cedar asked. “But I’m so hungry.”
Tess pressed her lips into a line. “We’re all hungry, but we don’t know how long we’ll be here and we need to save our food.”
“You mean we might run out?” Tabitha asked.
“I’m sure that won’t happen.” But Tess didn’t meet Tabitha’s eyes as she said it.
Nobody spoke during dinner. It took all of Tabitha’s strength to lift her spoon to her mouth. Plain noodles with salt and pepper had never tasted so good. Ashley stared at her cup of tea, but didn’t make a move to drink.
“You need to get fluid in your body,” Tess said.
Ashley nodded, but didn’t do anything.
Tess sat beside her and lifted the cup to her mouth. “Drink,” she ordered.
Ashley took a small sip.
Tess handed Cedar and Tabitha one square of chocolate each for dessert. Tabitha cradled it in her hand like a precious gem. Resisting the urge to stuff the whole thing down her throat, she let the square sit on her tongue for as long as possible, savoring the taste. The sweet chocolate oozed through her mouth. She rolled her tongue around, relishing the smooth yumminess of it.
For the first time since the trip started, Tabitha slept through the night. The sound of the rain actually soothed her. It had become such a constant noise, she hardly noticed it anymore.
She woke the next morning to rustling and murmuring. Lifting her head a few inches, she saw that Ashley and Cedar still slept. It must be Tess downstairs.
“It’s going to be a long day.”
Tabitha lay back on her bunk and listened. Who was she talking to? Max?
“I know, I know. It could be more than that.”
It sounded like she was talking on the phone and Tabitha could only hear one half of the conversation, but Tess had said phones didn’t work up here. Otherwise they would have called for help already.
“Yeah, maybe up to a week.”
Tabitha almost fell off her bunk as the words sank in. A week? What would they eat? What would her parents do?
Who was Tess talking to?
“I miss you too.”
Now Tabitha was really confused. Who could Tess be missing? The only person she could think of was Bruce, but there’s no way she could be talking to him— unless his ghost had come to visit. As quietly as she could, she slipped out of her sleeping bag and padded to the ladder. Peering over, she saw Tess cradling her teacup and staring at the box of Bruce’s ashes.
As Tabitha climbed down, Tess jerked her head in surprise, then recovered and smiled.
“Morning. I didn’t know anyone was up.”
“Any tea left?” Tabitha asked.
Tess pointed to the pot. “I found a stash of tea on the shelf. That’s one thing we don’t have to conserve.”
Tabitha poured herself a mug of tea. She opened her mouth to ask if Tess always talked to Bruce, then shut it again. It was obviously something private. If she wanted to talk to ghosts, that was her choice.
She sipped her tea and rinsed it around in her mouth. Her teeth felt furry. Her scalp itched. Her body stank. It had been three days since her brief swim in the lake. The fall in the river hadn’t done much to clean her.
“I wish I could shower,” she said.
Tess smiled. “You could go stand in the rain.”
“What did you do on the big ten-day trips you and Bruce used to take?” As soon as she asked, she worried that she’d made a mistake. Would it bother Tess to talk about Bruce?
But Tess only shrugged and said, “We’d try to swim a few times. Being dirty doesn’t bother me. In fact, I think bathing is a waste of time and water. I only shower every three or four days at home.”
Tabitha’s jaw dropped. Ever since she was a little kid, she’d had a bath or a shower almost every day. So did her parents. She loved being clean.
Footsteps padded across the sleeping loft, and Ashley’s face appeared at the top of the ladder. The swelling on her face had turned purple, and her chipmunk cheek was even more pronounced. She slowly made her way down the ladder and sat besi
de Tess.
“Tea?” her mom asked.
Ashley shook her head. Tess held the cup to her mouth anyway.
Cedar jumped down the ladder. “I’m starving, what’s for breakfast?”
“Granola,” Tess said. She handed him a bowl with a small pile of flakes at the bottom.
Cedar raised an eyebrow at his mom. “That’s it?”
Tess sighed.
“Why don’t you tell them,” Tabitha said.
Everyone’s heads turned her way in surprise.
“Huh?” Cedar said.
“We could be here for a week, and we might run out of food.” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice, but it didn’t work.
“Is that true, Mom?” Ashley asked.
Tess narrowed her eyes at Tabitha, as if weighing how much she’d heard and understood of her one-sided conversation. She nodded. “No use hiding the facts from you. We’re going to be on strict food rationing until the rain stops and we can head back down the mountain. We don’t know how long we might be stuck here.”
Cedar groaned. “I’ll never make it.”
“Yes, you will,” Tess said. “It won’t be fun, but the whole point of rationing the food is so that we will survive. The good news is that we brought extra fuel, and we can always cook on the woodstove if we run out.”
“What will Max eat?” Tabitha asked.
At the sound of his name, Max got up from his seat by the fire and nuzzled Tabitha’s hand.
“We’ll ration his food too. If he gets hungry enough, he’ll probably look for food outside.”
“What about us?” Cedar asked. “Can we do the same?”
Tess nodded. “There are still a few huckleberries on the bushes along the path. You can pick some. But don’t pick any mushrooms. I don’t know them well enough, and we don’t have an identification book with us.”
They sat and began to eat their meager breakfasts. Tabitha picked at her granola, trying to make it last longer. Cedar gobbled his share in two mouthfuls and went back to bed. Ashley sipped her tea when Tess forced her to. Tess must have eaten earlier, because she had nothing but tea.
After finishing her granola, Tabitha was still hungry. She poured herself another cup of tea to try and fill her stomach, then went and sat by the fire with a musty book she’d found on the shelf. It was a plant identification book. She might as well learn something if they were going to be stuck in the hut for a week.
She flipped through the pages, trying to recognize the different trees, but they all looked the same to her. Maybe if she went outside, she could try to find some of them to identify.
Grabbing her jacket, she went over to the door. “I’m going to take Max for a walk. Maybe I can find us some huckleberries.”
Tess raised an eyebrow. “Do you know which ones they are?”
Tabitha waved the plant identification book at her.
“Okay,” her aunt said. “There aren’t a lot of poisonous berries around here anyway. Stay away from anything white, or anything that looks like a billiard ball, and you’ll be fine.”
Tabitha put her hand on the door handle.
“And don’t take any chances!”
Tabitha slammed the door behind her. Did Tess still think she’d caused Ashley’s accident? After their ordeal yesterday, would she take a chance? Get real.
She headed in the opposite direction from the boulders where Ashley had fallen. Max trotted at her heels. She didn’t know if she was just getting used to the rain, but it felt like it had eased up ever so slightly. Instead of big drops splashing her face it was more like walking through a mist. Her pace quickened as her mood lifted. Maybe they’d get off the mountain sooner than they thought. Then she slowed. Maybe the clouds had moved lower, and she was walking inside of one. The mist was actually the cloud hitting her face. Below, the rain was probably still flooding the river.
It still felt good to be outside and away from the hut. She smiled. She was turning into a mountain girl after all. She was the only one of the group who wanted to come back outside after the hike yesterday. That hike was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, and she’d survived it. Wait till her parents heard. They’d never believe it. Her mom preferred the treadmill to walking outdoors. And most days, the only exercise her dad got was the walk to the bus stop. Her parents created computer programs so complicated that nobody else could understand them, but they didn’t have a clue about the wilderness.
Tabitha looked up from her thoughts and realized that she was walking alone. “Max!” she called. No response. “Max!”
All she heard was the rain. He must have run after a squirrel. She continued walking, calling as she went. After she walked for five minutes without seeing him, she decided to turn around. She returned to the spot where she thought she had lost him. In the dense fog, everything looked the same.
“Max, come!” Her voice sounded like her head was covered in a pillow. Maybe Max couldn’t even hear her. She stepped a few paces off the trail. Small heather bushes—she recognized them because they grew in her front yard—spotted the ground. She wound around them, calling Max’s name. Then she stopped. She could no longer see the path. This was a bad idea. She turned, eyes on the ground to make sure she didn’t miss the trail, and walked back down the hill.
The fog made her dizzy. She took a deep breath and kept walking. Within a few seconds, she stepped back onto the trail and sat down to center herself. She needed to think. Searching for Max wouldn’t do any good. He could be anywhere. If he chose not to come back to her, there was nothing she could do about it.
Max was a smart dog. He’d come back to the hut when he was ready. But what if he was hurt? She would have to take that chance. If she got lost too, then it would make things worse for everyone.
She began walking back to the hut. As she approached the final bend, she heard a snuffling sound ahead of her. “Max, there you are.”
She ran through the fog, ready to give him a hug and a talking-to.
It wasn’t Max. She screeched to a stop three feet from a large black bear.
She gasped and froze. She and the bear stared at each other. His huge body blocked the path. After a moment of the staring contest, he casually turned away from her and started eating berries.
Tabitha’s mind swam with images of bear maulings she’d read about in newspapers. Fear coursed through her body, making her tingle. Yet her feet were fixed to the ground. What should she do? The one thing she knew about bears was that you weren’t supposed to run. She couldn’t saunter past him either.
“I’m going to back up and get out of your way,” she said, trying not to sound scared. Her voice shook.
The bear turned to her again. Maybe talking wasn’t such a good idea. But she vaguely remembered a talk by a bear expert in grade two. She was pretty sure he’d said to talk so the bear knew you were human.
She edged backward into the fog. As far as she could tell, the bear didn’t follow. Berry bushes rustled, but she didn’t hear any paws thudding. What to do now that she was out of his sight? She could walk the long way around the lake, but that would take an hour at least. After the big hike the day before, and with so little food in her belly, she didn’t think she would have the strength to make it. Besides, Tess would probably start to worry and would come out looking for her when she was halfway around.
She waited a few minutes, but the bear didn’t move. The only thing to do was to walk off the path and go around him. Her heart beat so loudly, it drowned out all other sounds as she stepped off the path. It would be so easy to get lost in the fog. She counted her steps, trying to keep in as straight a line as possible. Her feet trampled the heather. If she walked around each bush she’d have no idea which way she was facing.
After twenty steps, she felt far enough from the bear to head back to the path. In the fog he wouldn’t see her. Would he smell her? All her senses felt deadened by the fog. Even the inside of her nose was damp. Maybe the bear’s would be too. She’d take the risk.
She turned, making sure the downhill slope was on her right. How far to walk? Not far enough, and she’d meet up with the bear again. Too far, and she’d wind up in the creek that ran past the hut.
The terrain became more difficult as she walked. Boulders crept out of the fog and tripped her. Tall bushes covered in red berries blocked her way. She had to weave around them, hoping that she was still heading in the right direction. It felt like the downhill slope was still on her right, but she was so disoriented she couldn’t be sure.
Finally she turned again and headed to where she hoped the trail would be. She inched her way toward it, stopping after every step to listen for snuffling and grunting, straining to see a black beast towering over her, ready to charge.
After twenty paces she slowed even more. She must be close to the trail. Twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven. No trail. Maybe she’d taken smaller steps on the way down. At thirty she began to worry. What if she’d walked in the wrong direction while avoiding the bushes? She could be lost out here all night.
She berated herself for not walking the long way around the lake. Because she was too lazy, she might wind up completely lost. First she had lost Max; then she had gotten lost herself. So much for being a mountain girl.
She shook her head. Time to focus. Forty steps. Nothing. Her cheeks prickled with panic. Fifty. Should she call out for help? No. The bear would be the only help that would arrive.
After fifty-eight paces she stepped onto the path. She stopped for a full minute, cocking her head and listening like a chipmunk. No sign of any bear. Cautiously, she crept along the path until she saw the hut. She sprinted the last few steps, flung open the door and slammed it closed behind her.
CHAPTER NINE
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Tess said.
“A bear,” Tabitha squeaked. She leaned her back against the door, willing her heart to slow.
Cedar ran to the window. “No way! Where?”
“In the middle of the path.” Tabitha’s hands shook so much that she could hardly unzip her jacket.